Individual or community nest boxes? Pros & cons of each?

[sonew123]

mine fight over them-they have their favorites. With winter in full swing I don't care that they line up to use them because there's always a warm chicken on the eggs being laid making the chances of them freezing and cracking less Actually I prefer them to share because they are cleaner when I retrieve them and warm to grab on my hands...yeah

 

[JestersEye]

My hens seem to prefer individual nest boxes, but to be honest... I never really tried the community type. I use milk crates laid on their sides on top of a wooden shelf we built in the coop. I also added a small strip of cage wire to make a lip along the bottom of the box, to help keep the hay in the nest and to make it harder to accidentally (or purposefully) roll an egg out of the nest.

The advantage to using the separate milk crates is that I can simply move them around when needed. In fact, I have a broody hen in one right now; and I was able to lift the whole nest and move it into a broody pen we built under the shelf, to separate her (and her future chicks) from the rest of the flock. She even stayed in the crate while it was being lifted and repositioned, with no problems whatsoever.

I have noticed that the hens will all use the same nest box to lay their eggs whenever possible, regardless of how many are available.

 

[consdrs]

I have a community box in one coop and divided ones in the other. on top of it all I had a broody Cochin in the community one for almost 3 months! the broody was so cute. when we opened up the box and there was a chicken laying with her in the box she would lay her wing over the other chicken, too cute! I would build what you want to build. I see no difference in egg laying, comfort, cleanliness, or bullying in either coop. my community one has just an opening at one end and is about 3.25 feet long. I have no complaints in the complaint box...

 

[Ridgerunner]

I pretty much agree with Consdrs, build what is convenient to you. The chickens don't care that much. The advantage I see for the community nest box is that they often want to lay together. This gives them room to do that without piling on top of each other. A potential broody is the only disadvantage I see with the community box. You can solve that by having a separate place to move your broody to.

I'll show a photo of my two individual nests to show what I did. The area in the middle can be used to house an injured chicken until it can recover, to "starve" a chicken for 24 hours before it is processed to empty its digestive system, to break a broody, or by rearranging the dividers, isolate a broody in the nest she went broody in and have room to feed, water and let her take her daily constitutional her in the middle section. I can access the middle section from the back.

 

[chookchick]

I read soo many posts about them fighting over one box, that I built a community box. Works fine for me, and you could always add dividers later if you change your mind. But their FAVORITE nest box was the "emergency" box that I built out of a recycling bin and a piece of plywood on top. They have their own ideas sometimes.....

BTW--I hate, hate wire floors! Are you sure you want to go that route?

 

[greathorse]

Quote:
Almost the exact same size as mine and same sentiment, frankly my community box was built out of sheer laziness after I discovered it is a common style for small flocks. I like the thought of roll out but laziness has thwarted that project LOL

 

[Sam The Yam]

I have four nest boxes in my coop and they never lay in the bottom two, always in the top two. I think they like to try to out do each other so they lay in the same boxes.

 

[briteday]

We have both community box (1) and individual nest boxes (3) for 16 layers. They all tend to use different boxes on different days, doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I have noticed that the larger hens (Delawares especially) like the community box, probably because it's big.

But I have also noticed lately that there is some fighting going on over nest boxes and I think it is impacting my egg production. So I'm thinking about adding some nest boxes on the other side of the coop as well so that the older girls aren't chasing away the younger pullets.

 

[nature nut]

I have a square shaped nest box bump out on one side of my coop. There are 3 nests. Two individual nests make up the bottom half and one community nest on the top half. So far I found that my two oldest hens which were several years old when I got them prefer the bottom individual boxes and the two pullets that have grown up here together like to lay in the community box. Their eggs are always side by side in the same little hole in the hay. Those two are always together. I have two more about to start laying and I'm curious to see which they choose. I tell you though no matter which one of the nests they pick they all gather around in front of the nests and cheer each other on when its laying time. I don't have any problems with dirty eggs in the community box. In fact 99% of the time they are spotless but I don't have a problem with them wanting to hang out or roost in the boxes. They just go in them to lay.